


waged both life and land

by shaekspeares



Category: Six - Marlow/Moss
Genre: All of these characters are kind of bitches and that's valid, Copious references to beheading, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Especially about. Theatre. Because show, Extended Metaphors, F/F, Feminist Themes, For a Boleyn/Aragon weirdo romance fic this is very not about that, Gallows Humor, Historical Metaphors, Humor, Incomprehensibly complex relationships, Introspection, One Shot, Philosophising about reincarnation, Pseudo-History, Team Dynamics, Unnecessary focus on the premise of the actual historical figures turned Y2K popstars, Walks a fine line between oddly serious and very lighthearted, and also, unsurprisingly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27254500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaekspeares/pseuds/shaekspeares
Summary: You'd think being history's greatest conniving harlot would give you some pointers on how to handle a situation like this, but Anne's almost a year into the band and still not clear on whether stabbing or seducing Aragon would be the most productive course of action. As if being the twenty-first century pop sensation re-incarnation of an English monarch's famously beheaded second bride wasn't enough of a headache without throwing ex-wifey number one into the mix- and that's without getting into the motley crew she's supposed to turn to for advice.
Relationships: Anne Boleyn & George Boleyn, Anne Boleyn & Katherine Howard, Anne Boleyn/Catherine of Aragon
Comments: 24
Kudos: 62





	waged both life and land

**Author's Note:**

> why did i write this, you ask? don't ask questions you don't want the answers to, i respond.
> 
> no, seriously, i can't possibly try to tailor my rambling thought process on this into a note box, so let me paraphrase very strongly and say that i am weirdly obsessed with the metaphysical implications of the performers of six being literal incarnations of the original historical women. there's just so much potential in the overlay of their on-stage personas and their actual personalities. as a result this fic (whilst being entirely detached from the IRL people involved) is very evidently based on the real women as seen through the lens of their newfound lives and their interest in reframing their own narratives. i think boleyn was the one to jump out at me for this because she's the most antagonistic of the six 'characters' and plays the most into her caricature and as a result had the most interesting contrast between 'xo baby' boleyn and the actual woman (who i have incidentally have been intermittently fascinated by since i was a girl), and her and aragon just have the most juicy relationship to reconsider. 
> 
> obviously as this fic is still very firmly six-based it meshes history and fun musical so i discarded profound substantiated analysis in favour of trying to stay more or less in keeping with the women of the show. absolutely no idea how the end product translates tonally but also don't really care because this entire story is just an extremely niche random interest of mine that i expect will attract 0 audience. i can't be putting out Popular Anime Boy Slash too often or it'll kill my indie writer cred; i was due some weirdness. 
> 
> also six the musical > hamilton there that's a hot take to keep you warm through the winter season

There’s a curtain call every night, and the audience clapping, and encores, and cheering following them off stage, and the persisting glare of the lights, and then quiet.

They chatter amongst themselves. Theirs is a strange bond, these women out of time, ex-wives and new women. It’s not that it’s a lie, this song they sing, this message of unity- being time-travelling musical pop-star incarnations of a medieval monarch’s six spouses will put things in perspective for you. It’s just that some grudges run deep, and some temperaments co-exist difficultly irrespective of whether or not there’s a royal hand in marriage involved. The on-stage bickering might exaggerate, and they are all of them capable of civil conversation, but it is rare that Aragon and Anne hang off each other for effusive after-party hugs.

Aragon was first. This is, Anne sometimes argues, maybe uncharitably, all that she has going for her. But she was first as first should be, and first for so long that even now she sometimes seems to regard the rest of them with startled offence, like playing her part for twenty four years should have been some kind of guarantee against her unlikely succession.

Twenty four years. Nowadays Anne is twenty four, and Aragon barely older. Back then there had been decades between them.

Still. Aragon was first, and here too she is first- first to say no, first to leave. Staunchly moral even now, all righteous virtue, but no longer under any illusion as to her womanly duty. Making her music, paving the way, severe and striking and still fucking sore about the whole Henry thing.

“It’s not very girl power of you to hold this against me,” Anne informs her, one of a thousand nights, as they fix mics. Aragon levels her with a look.

“You think I care that you seduced Henry?”

“Oh, you cared.”

“I cared that you usurped my throne,” Aragon responds, like she’s a complete braindead moron. “I cared that you irrevocably destroyed the religious landscape of our nation with your reckless demands.”

“Right,” Anne says, after a beat, in it for the last word. “Won’t anyone think of the monasteries?”

Sometimes luck smiles upon her, though the history books indicate otherwise: their mics go on just as she drawls the last word, so Aragon never gets to answer.

There’s this thing Aragon does, though, where her silences lie like physical weights, all suffocating judgment, and though Anne is exceptionally good at not letting herself pay attention to them she is nonetheless unable to ignore them entirely. And not-ignoring it means thinking about how awkward it is, actually, that things are still like this between the two of them, centuries down the line, in an altered narrative.

“I don’t see why you care,” Howard tells her, sprawled across her bunk in the tour bus, lathering on nail polish with practiced precision. “Thought you lived by your own rules an’ whatnot.”

Anne rolls over so she can see more of her than her (admittedly nice) legs. “Doesn’t mean I have to enjoy the constant bitching.”

Howard curls up a knee, blows on her wet nails. “You could stand to goad her a little less.”

“Oh, come off it,” Anne retorts, flippant. “Like you’re not tired of the whingeing. Oh, Henry cheated with a hot piece of ass, woe is me. Oh, I died of old age, you’d never understand the affront.”

“It is a bit annoying what with the beheadings,” Howard concedes, pausing in her ministrations to gnaw at her lip thoughtfully. “Look, Aragon can be a mythic bitch, we all know that. I’m not saying I’m particularly keen on her.”

“That’s a relief,” Anne opines. “Was starting to think the bleach fumes had gotten to you.”

“Don’t be a cunt,” Howard replies, ruffling her pink locks self-consciously. “It’s just- we’ve had this conversation before. Every tour. Every couple of weeks, even.”

“Recurring problem, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but Anne, every time you just bitch about it and then don’t change anything you do. There’s sort of two of you involved.”

The nerve of her, Anne thinks, sitting up and raising critical brows. “Is that right? Maybe I’ll stop coming to you about it, then. That enough change for you?”

“ _Anne_ ,” Howard groans, all pretty pouting because she never drops the act when she’s on the defensive. “I can’t help if you don’t want to listen.”

“I don't come to you for _help_ ,” Anne rebuts, a little vicious, because she is a complete hypocrite when it comes to acts and the dropping thereof. “Be a smidge ironic considering your stellar track record.”

Some days Howard takes the barbs to heart; today she just gives her a look, mouth pulling. “You know what? You deserve each other.”

Anne resolves to go tighten every strap on her costume ahead of the next performance.

Her cousin has a point, though. This is not so rare an occurrence as might be expected, considering Katherine’s youth and exuberance and general put-upon ditziness. Anne has never been the kind to fall for the theatrics, but she will confess to a certain level of bias that sometimes blinds her to the girl’s particular brand of smarts.

Here and now, though, having licked her wounds, she can concede to it: there are two of them in this equation. And that complicates things, because Aragon is never going to make the first gesture of conciliation. Christian piety be damned- she thinks of herself as the primordial wronged party, so Anne must be the one to bend the knee.

She wonders if it’s true, that she’d never resented her for Henry. Her memories are muddled nowadays, when she tries to recall that time, and they’d seen so little of one another, after the affair had started. The queen had been the last of Anne’s concerns, those days.

She supposes she could apologise. It’s just that she doesn’t feel especially apologetic. She was hardly the first of Henry’s infidelities, and though she guesses she can understand Aragon’s larger grievances she was never much one for the Catholic Church. Perhaps she might feel something for the children, but Mary was a mythic bitch herself, and putting Elizabeth on the throne is a legacy Anne can’t even pretend to regret.

‘I’m sorry that you’re still holding a grudge’ wouldn’t quite cut it, she suspects. And she hates reflecting on those days anyways- hates the way it disorients her, hates the claustrophobia that surges through her when she starts forgetting she’s no longer riding the rat-race of the court. Far easier to move on, to perform flippancy. There’s a reason her song is by far the least serious on the set-list.

“If you really wanted to win,” Cleves tells her, once, sat nursing a pint by her side, “You could, you know.”

“What’s that, love?”

Cleves fixes her with that no-nonsense Germanic stare of hers. “Your song. If you bothered to tell the truth. Just as good a sob story as any of theirs.”

Anne sips her beer. “It is the truth.”

“It’s a very narrow version of the truth.”

“Right, 'cause yours is a historically-accurate biography?” Anne ripostes. Cleves only shrugs.

“I had a good life. You, not so much.”

She traces the rim of her glass, considers the other woman. Though Katherine is family, of them all she thinks she likes Cleves best, despite the natural resentment. Something about her plain-speaking self-assurance manages to bypass Anne’s prickly reservations, maybe just because of all the people she knows she is the most blatantly disinterested in any kind of courtly manipulation.

“Maybe not,” Anne concedes, thus, dropping the attitude for a moment. “But they already know all about that.”

Cleves is looking at her when she glances up, expression more thoughtful. “And this is how you decide to retell the story.”

“Catchier this way,” Anne smiles, and finishes her pint.

It’s not naiveté that guides her performance every evening, nor a lack of self-awareness; she has always been keenly aware of how she brands herself.Catchiness is certainly a part of it- she provides a great deal of their viral soundbites, and sass sells, nowadays. That it makes her walk the fine line between attention-grabbing girl boss and resident remorseless bitch is hardly novel- there’s just less of a risk of anyone having her head when they decide she’s fallen into the latter category. It’s an improvement on her first time around the block.

Still, Cleves is more observant than she’s given credit for. Her number doesn’t stand out because she’s retelling the story- that’s sort of the metatextual point of it all, isn’t it? It’s how she retells it that doesn’t quite mesh with the rest of the cast. Just as good a sob story as anyone else’s, Cleves had said, and she’s not wrong. If she’d liked, Anne could have milked that- recentered the narrative on the suffocating powerlessness of her marriage, the hopeless struggles, a caged spirit straining for recognition. She’d refused Henry when she’d caught his fancy, time and time again; _The_ _Other Boleyn Girl_ or _The Tudors_ certainly never bother to pick up on that detail. And she had spent those miserable years on the throne in claustrophobic, ever-mounting terror, furious and helpless and all too aware of the walls closing in.

She has no interest in telling that story, though. Abhors the thought of spending night upon night upon night rehashing the nightmare of her reigning years, shining the spotlight on that bruising vulnerability. That’s Seymour’s game, and Howard’s, even Parr’s; placing their suffering at the heart of the story. And it’s effective, certainly, and well-earned, but she had gone to the executioner’s block in high spirits all those years ago, and so no audience will ever see her break.

She’s never especially cared to be liked. Rather the lovable bitch than the evening’s tragedy: if the other girls sometimes look on with discomfort as she cheerily trivialises her own beheading, it’s no skin off her back.

“No olive-branch apology, then?” Howard asks backstage the next day, eyeing Aragon as she glides onto stage. Anne only shakes her head.

It gets her thinking, though, across the days. Her thoughts crystallise as she watches Aragon go through her lighting checks, sat cross-legged at the edge of the stage sipping on a cold brew latte: their numbers are more similar than she'd previously realised.

There’s sort of an even distribution, between the six of them. Seymour, Howard and Parr have the sad stories- love stories, thwarted love stories, all interpersonal pathos. Cleves, Aragon and herself err on the more irreverent end of the spectrum, except where Cleves’ number is more of a gleeful brag-fest and Anne’s is a glib unapologetic rundown of her own little tragedies, Aragon’s is just pissed off denial. Still- same category, and it's not often that Anne thinks of them as on the same side of any divide. Where their performances are concerned there's no denying it, though, and that gets her running through other commonalities.

They both stick to the facts, for one. No long backstory of failed romances or past abuse; no whimsical looks towards the future. Aragon recounts her marriage and doesn’t bother with the looming next step; Anne gets up to her execution and jumps right back into the chorus. They are neither of them willing to dwell on the rest.

Aragon also doesn’t particularly try for likability, Anne realises, watching her rehearse. Oh, her song is plenty spirited, and she hammers home the wrongs she was done, which her wins points with the audience- certainly these days there’s an appreciation for women standing up to their husbands’ failings. But she doesn’t plead for the sympathy she could so easily win- dig into the pain and the humiliation of it all, the two miserable years she spent shunned and banished to isolation and illness, never to see her daughter again. Like Anne, she allows herself only one singular break in the routine.

She doesn’t hold back on the catty remarks, either. And they all play that up in the first act, of course, but her barbs are the least playful- and the most targeted.

Funny, Anne thinks, mulling it over. The realisation makes her feel a certain benevolent respect for the woman.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Seymour, obviously. No one else she knows speaks like a children’s storybook- or sunnily intrudes upon Anne’s brooding when she’s in a mood.

“Hi, Jane,” Anne says, a tad archly. Seymour folds neatly to her knees, mic rustling against her paint-spattered dungarees as she moves, and ignores the look she gets with all the grace of a mother of multiple very young children.

“Hi, Anne. So?”

“Just thinking about the intricacies of female friendship,” Anne concedes gracefully, all wink-nudge-smile-at-the-camera. Seymour hums thoughtfully.

“I don’t think we’re really the typical example, considering.”

“Right you are,” Anne agrees, smile going a little sharp as she looks her over. If the mood struck she’d be well within her rights to treat lovely Jane Seymour with all the nasty resentment Aragon likes to lay on her- she’d served the both of them, after all, shared Anne’s wedding bed in the months before her death, taken her crown not even a full day after her execution.

She’s not Aragon, though, and though it is an ungenerous thought to think that Seymour is somewhat out of her depth when it comes to the big leagues it is Anne’s most honest justification for not holding a grudge. Jane’s hardly stupid, but she’s no intellectual, and there’s no machinations to her- Anne can trust in her apparent lack of malice, let the bygone desires of dead kings be bygones.

It is with these thoughts in mind that she sighs and settles back onto her palms, gaze keen despite the resigned posture.

“Janey, d’you think I’m a bitch?”

“No!” Seymour protests, then falters, smiles somewhat sheepishly. “Well, a little. Mostly I think you just like to play at one.”

Not stupid at all, Anne confirms, and bobs her head in conciliatory agreement.

“I’m not bad…”

“Just drawn that way,” Seymour finishes, eyes alit, and Anne sighs and tilts her head back.

“You make yourself so hard to hate.”

“Thanks,” Seymour says, and grins. “Love you too.”

There is throat-clearing nearby, in the tone of one who has been calling for a while. When Anne lifts her gaze towards the culprit she finds her stood hip cocked and impatient-looking, skin gone sweat-golden.

“Your Highness?”

“It’s your turn for checks,” Aragorn announces, screwing her bottle open and glancing between the two of them. Anne salutes, enjoys the glower she receives in return.

“Yes ma’am.”

She can almost feel Seymour shake her head as she saunters off to centre stage.

“Go away,” Howard warns, when Anne comes barging in, slumped flat on her back on the floor of her dressing room.

She cuts a pathetic picture half out of costume, lip pulling in a self-pitying pout; Anne drops to her haunches and yanks her remaining boot free, ignoring the whine of complaint in favour of unwrapping the rest of her skirt and shimmying her sweats on.

“Come on, princess, up and at it.”

“I’m not going out tonight,” Howard protests, hand flung over her eyes. “I’m hideous.”

“Wouldn’t be putting you in a tracksuit if I was trying to get you out, would I?” Anne inquires, efficiently discarding dress and boot both on the dresser. “And let’s not even start with the self-knocking.”

Howard has these moods nowadays, where her newfound independence battles with her ingrained fear of loneliness and her brain concludes that her physique is at fault. Anne has never especially been filled with wells of feminine encouragement, but Howard is the baby of the group, and her baby at that. Beyond her fits of temper she manages to treat her with a gentler touch.

“Don’t patronise me.”

“Me? You?” Anne asks, all affectation. It gets Howard to struggle to her elbows and glower at her, at least, though the scowl fades when Anne hands her a glass.

“Prosecco?”

“Champagne.”

“What are we celebrating?” Howard asks, but she shuffles obligingly upwards as Anne uncorks the bottle and pours her a glass, colour returning to her cheeks.

“Keeping our heads screwed on,” Anne pronounces, filling her own glass and raising it. Her eyes meet Howard’s, who finally smiles, all sharp-soft-raw and not an act at all.

“Mostly.”

“Mostly,” Anne concedes, and clinks their glasses together. That’s family for you- every day is another cycle of fights and apologies and forgiveness, for the most part out of order.

Howard wiggles her toes, shuffles until her feet are stuck under Anne’s upper leg, then leans to rest her forehead against Anne’s knee, only a little mindful of her makeup as she swirls her glass thoughtfully.

“I’m really glad we get to do this.”

“This _is_ much nicer than that off-brand swill from last week.”

“Not what I meant,” Howard huffs, but she raises her head to pull a face. “That was proper disgusting though.”

“Germans,” Anne says, disparaging. Howard nods commiseratingly.

“Just don’t have that soft touch.”

“Lucky for you your _cousine_ is from _Paris_ and not Berlin.”

“Very,” Howard acknowledges, all serious, which makes Anne resignedly lean in to kiss her forehead with unnatural sisterly affection. When she pulls back Howard is grinning, sincerity forgotten in the face of thrilled surprise.

“Oh, don’t start.”

“What’s all this then?”

“Don’t.”

“Surely not our ice queen? Anne Boleyn, as I live and breathe?”

“Drink your champagne and shut it,” Anne pouts, and smothers her smile in her drink.

Several hours later finds them still sprawled out on the dressing room floor, empty bottle of champagne long discarded in favour of Schnapps and queued up episodes of Drag Race. Her rumpled-looking cousin rolls to face her with a thoughtful look midway through Chi Chi Devayne's underwhelming neon runway.

“Anne?”

“Katherine?”

“What was Aragon like, before everything?”

Anne has to stop to stare at her, unsure of having heard the question right, but the funny look on Howard’s face means she hasn’t hallucinated.

“How much have you had, exactly?”

“Look,” Howard says, squirming into position. “I was _born_ in the _twenties_. You were queen for my early teens. I remember nothing of Queen Catherine.”

“Ever opened a history book?” Anne quips, though she knows full-well it’s not the same. It's what makes her forego the necessary back and forth and skip ahead to answering. “Well, I don’t know, pet. She was- a Queen, you know. Not because of the crown.”

“I can see that,” Howard murmurs, pensive. Anne sighs, runs a hand through her hair.

“She was ten times the royal he was. Just had that aura about her, you know? I mean, you remember how he was- but she had that stamp of grandeur. You didn’t mind playing second fiddle.”

Blessedly, Howard makes no comment on just how happy Anne is to play second fiddle to anyone. The fact of the matter is that she had been, when it came to the throne- no desire for the king’s hand in marriage. Abruptly she recalls some ill-remembered conversation, Aragon at a cards table. _My lady Anne, you have good hap to stop at a king, but you are not like others, you will have all or none._

She’s not defending her Christian goodness, but she’d been loyal to her Queen, until she couldn’t be.

“Think that’s why she still kicks up such a fuss about it,” Anne concludes, quietly, eyes fixed sightlessly on the screen. “She was queen before she was anything else.”

“And she didn’t get much of a chance to be anything after either,” Howard echoes, and then sighs gustily.

Christ, Anne thinks. Mood-kill. Then she shakes herself.

“Oh, yeah, nothing much. Just a reincarnated international musical sensation.”

“There is that,” Howard agrees, perking up, and then perks up some more as she refocuses on the show. “Hey, d’you reckon we could ask Drag Race to do us as a runway theme? We could guest judge!”

“That’s a lot of queens in a room, babe.”

They hit the road. Cities pass by. The next time Anne is in a dressing room they’re in Paris, and when she steps off the stage, buzzing from the comedown, home crowd gone wild and encores repeating ad nauseam, she catches Aragon on her way to the dressing room, hand to wrist.

“What it is, Anne?” Aragon asks, friendly enough, hand dropping from the buttons of her belt. It’s been a good week, fights to a minimum, which maybe explains the burst of goodwill as Anne rocks back onto her heels.

“You coming out?”

“Tonight?” Aragon asks, eyes flickering this way and that, lifts a shoulder consideringly. “I thought we were doing tomorrow.”

“We are,” Anne agrees, working at her back zipper. “I meant- just us.”

Aragon stills and stares, which Anne can’t fault her for. She’s quick with the composure, though, falls back on her feet soon enough. “I’m not sure two nights in a row-“

“C’mon,” Anne insists, stauncher now that she’s facing opposition. “Live a little. _Paris_. You. Me. Pair of good shoes. Hot French boys.”

“My French is rusty,” Aragon says, but her gaze has gone considering rather than suspicious. Anne smirks.

“Well, Spanish is close enough.”

“ _Mentirosa_ ,” Aragon notes, arms crossed. “Why are you asking me?”

Anne could play dumb, but that’s not a strategy she’s fond of, nor one that’s ever won her any favours with this particular woman.

“I just think it’s a bit fucked we’ve never done anything just the two of us, since-“ She makes the general hand-wavy motion they use to refer to the unlikely circumstances of their reunion.

“Why now?”

“Have to start somewhere,” Anne shrugs, which is as close to true as she feels up to. It works, anyways; Aragon’s severe lines give slightly, gaze uncomfortably cognisant.

“I’ll fetch my shoes, then.”

“Good girl,” Anne grins, and flounces off before Aragon can lambast her too much for it.

The night, like many others, coagulates into one tremendous blur, in the aftermath. Anne remembers fragments: a lot of dancing, a lot of cocktails, a lot of half-yelled conversations in VIP lounges, and some really quite decent pictures posted to her Instagram story. Sore feet, after, and no sudden heartfelt transition to best-friendhood, but in rehearsals the next day when Anne groans dramatically about early mornings Aragon slants her a look that’s more amused than scathing.

Cleves begins to hum ‘We Are the World’ between set. Anne only laughs.

"Katherine thinks it’d be funnier if you switched,” Parr is saying, in Amsterdam, the both of them in a hotel room with Parr’s laptop balanced between them. They all pitch in with the concerts- write their own songs, obviously, but contribute to the larger spectacle in their various ways. Parr’s often the one who does the management, though, mostly by covert consensus that she’s least likely to ruffle any feathers.

“Howard’s humour comes primarily from watching old Friends reruns,” Anne says, leaning onto her back. “Aragon and I switching would be sit-com levels of tired.”

“What’s your suggestion, then?”

Anne considers it, crosses her legs. “Well, it’d be the biggest change if we went by type. Howard should do Aragon. You can be me. Cleves can do Howard’s number. And then Aragorn and I can do the big old ballads.”

“Right,” Parr says, nodding in thought. “You should do me.”

“That’s how you put it?”

“What?” Parr blinks, and then runs it back, flushes before she winces. “ _Anne_.”

“I’m not saying _no_ ,” Anne pushes, warming to it. “I mean, I get it, you know, tour gets lonely and I’m obviously best pickings amongst this lot. Just saying I could do with some wooing first, you know? Roses, maybe. A diamond or two.”

“God,” Parr laughs, hiding her face. “Can we please get back to the planning?”

“Date planning?”

“ _Please_.”

“That’s a start,” Anne winks, and smiles a mite less flirtatiously at Parr’s goofy little giggle. “Right, so. You think _I_ should do the big sisterhood number?”

“Well, it’s you or Aragon,” Parr plays along, before shaking her head, ever the diplomat. “I don’t mind, really. I just think it’d be a good show if you did.”

“Aragon gets the Seymour number?” Anne ponders, then smirks. Good show indeed. She has the pipes, no question; it’s the mooning over Henry Anne’d pay to see.

“Promising set,” Parr murmurs, working over the spreadsheet. Classic Parr, that- likelier real appreciation than a barb, though not so likely that the possibility can be excluded.

“That settled then? No outside opinion?”

“I’ll ask the girls what they think, of course. But I like it.”

“Better start learning my lines, then.”

“You know everyone’s already, scene-stealer,” Parr accuses, very gently. Anne only hums as she lies back upon her bed.

Back in the day, Parr had achieved the minor miracle of getting along with both of her step-daughters. A testament to her mildness and strategy, certainly, but more importantly the reason Anne is powerless to truly dislike her. Elizabeth hadn’t had much by way of mother figures.

“Beds have gotten so much better since the Middle Ages,” Anne says, instead of all that. She doesn’t even have any kids yet.

When she does, she knows who they’ll be.

“Done,” Parr announces, sitting back with a definite snap of her laptop as it folds shut. “God, all of this travelling wears you out, doesn’t it?”

“Better than being cooped up in some dusty castle wing.”

“Well, I never left England the first time around,” Parr notes, scrubbing a hand through her curls as she lies back. “Limited opportunities, what with the husbands.”

“Never a fan of those,” Anne agrees, smirking in her direction. Parr’s lips curl unwillingly.

“And you only had one.”

“One was enough.”

“You never were one to succumb to the charms of men,” Parr sighs, with what could pass as quiet envy in her gaze. Anne hums.

“Not charms, no. And since I’m all emancipated nowadays I’ve got no use for the lot of them.”

“I’ve never asked,” Parr says, all hazel-eyed interest. “But of all those courtiers-“

It’s Parr, and she so rarely questions anything that Anne just quirks her brow.

“You mean all those men who felt really, really sorry they let Henry chop my head off? Lovely blokes, yeah.”

“There was much weeping amongst them all afterwards,” Parr says, then blinks and catches herself from slipping into old English. “Or, well- so I heard, anyways.”

“Oh, you mean Percy fainting? Or Cranmer’s bitch-fit? Considering they were both happy to sit on the jury ‘m not exactly overwhelmed by their sensibilities.”

Parr looks at her with such troubled sympathy that Anne wipes the scathing resentment away, goes for a mocking head-tilt.

“My brother gets a pass, though.”

“Not quite a suitor.”

“Wasn’t he?” Anne asks, callous, and watches with interest as Parr only laughs quietly. Seymour would have blustered, Cleves would rolled her eyes, and Howard, bless her sick little head, might have believed it- Aragon probably does. Parr, though, doesn’t even spare it a thought.

“That’s family. It’s not the same.”

Funny she should say that, Anne thinks, since her father had no qualms condemning Anne and George both to execution regardless.

“Point being,” she says, gazing up at the hotel ceiling, “Men are a colossal waste of space, and that’s the last I want to say on that topic for the next month.”

“See?” Parr replies, shifting to watch her. “You’re perfect for my song. You already have the words down.”

Speaking of devils as they are, George stops by in Prague, his usual jet-setting schedule coinciding with theirs for a few days, a happy accident that comes as news to Anne. They’re just finishing rehearsals for their switched routines when she hears the rapturous applause from the normally empty audience, and when the lights dim enough to see beyond the stage there is a familiar curly-haired figure whistling loudly from the front row.

Anne is grinning and running before she can think better, mic dropping loudly amongst the laughter of the other girls and the crew, and when she takes a running leap George catches her neatly around the waist, spins them both until she’s half-dizzy.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Anne laughs, as they stumble to a halt. “My brother.”

“Ladies,” George beams, winking over her shoulder. “Gentlemen.”

“Cousin George,” Howard giggles, as the others smile. Anne meets Aragon’s eye, saucy wink fading midway when she startles at the warmth on the other woman’s face.

“Bunch of lookers you have here,” George mutters into her ear, refocusing her attention as she hits him on the shoulder.

“Oi, hands off. My girls.”

“Bah,” George dismisses. “Sharing is caring.”

He’s still hovering too closely for her to see his face, the big baby- lax rules of sibling propriety have transformed him into a limpet. Anne peels him off her with a growing smirk the more he struggles and protests.

“Who let you in here, anyways?”

“I wrote to Aragon,” George says, radiating smugness at the look she gives him.

“Now why the hell would you do that?”

“You say yourself she’s the HBIC,” George sing-songs. “Besides, you’re the only two queens _I_ recognise.”

“Only cause you had your head chopped off before Seymour,” Anne scoffs, tapping him on the nose. “You’re lucky she didn’t have yours.”

“Nah, she likes me,” George deflects, throwing an arm around her waist. “Now come on, I want to see your dressing room.”

“You better have sent flowers ahead.”

For the duration of his three-day stay it’s just like old days- medieval and otherwise- the two of them glued to each other’s side gossiping in rapid-fire French as they charm their way through the Czech Republic. In many ways George has always been her other half- littler self, she used to say, tongue-in-cheek, diminutive despite the masculine virtues that set him above her in the world. They are an independent sort, the Boleyns, but it’s good to have him around, even now, at the cost of cast and crew seeing her in her rawest form.

“You know what the problem is here?” George asks her, his last night in Prague, the two of them sprawled elegantly side-by-side on a fire-escape outside a nightclub. Anne taps her cigarette out on his boot.

“Your shirt?”

“Hey.”

“Go ahead.”

“Her Highness the Queen Catalina.”

  
“Well, I knew that.”

George laughs. “Stop out-witting me, I’m drunk!”

“Convenient.”

“- _and_ I’m not finished! It’s the status quo that’s the problem.”

“Oh, no,” Anne starts, shaking her head forbiddingly. “Don’t status quo me, I’ve already _started_ on the whole reconciliation vibe- which you _know_.”

“Status quo,” George retorts, cupping his hands over his mouth for added volume. When Anne elbows him he laughs, settles down. “Darling, reconciliation? You were conciliatory back in the day. You’re just reverting to form.”

_Before_ Henry, Anne understands, and gives him a hard look, frowning in thought. George’ eyes- her own devilish brown- reflect her gaze right back at her, under the flashing lights.

“Status quo-o.”

“Don’t lecture me on reformation,” Anne warns, still frowning, as George steals her cigarette back, takes a drag.

“Well, reform, then.”

“Bitch,” Anne accuses, timed just to make him choke a laugh on a mouthful of smoke, shaking his head ruefully.

“God, I miss you. You sure you’re not looking for back-up dancers?”

“You could cameo on Don’t Lose Your Head.”

“It does have a certain _je ne sais quoi_ ring to it.”

“That and you’re up to your neck in gambling debts.”

It’s her turn to steal the cigarette as Georges stills and glowers in affronted surprise; question-mark visible in his expression.

“You think I don’t have my sources?” Anne asks, coy, and puffs out a breath of smoke right into his scowl. “‘M still the lady of your house, sweets.”

“Some lady,” George mutters, temper muted by admiration; he’s half-way to smiling when she flicks the B on her choker and gets to her feet.

“And don’t you forget it. We’ll handle it. Now come on, they’re playing ABBA.”

“Say no more,” George concedes, eyes twinkling, and so all radicalism is put on the burner for the night.

She stops by Aragon’s room on the way back, heels in hand and riding the post-crash high, isn’t surprised to find her up despite the hour. Regular insomniac, Aragon is.

“Anne.”

“My lady,” Anne echoes, because the tone calls for it, but it’s not antagonistic; she leans in the doorframe, crosses her legs. “Just wanted to say thanks.”

“What on earth for?” Aragon asks, brows rising. When Anne inclines her head towards the window, where taxis are streaming out to and fro the airport, she makes a little sound of understanding, shakes her head. “Don’t be silly. It was all his idea.”

“Decent of you, though,” Anne affirms, graces her with a slightly self-effacing smile. “He’s a menace, that one. I’ve been told it’s genetic.”

“Charming, too,” Aragon counters, lips twitching, and reclaims the doorknob. “Good night, Anne.”

Her other half is correct, though: she’s been slacking when it comes to reformative gusto. Aragon and her have been making steady progress since that first night out- moved conclusively into the now, the them, imbued some sincerity into the friendly banter as well as the barbs- but that’s only gotten them into a sort of stagnant complaisance. Which has never once been the point of this whole exercise- stagnation? From a Boleyn? Anne’s not _Mary_.

The issue as she sees it is this: what’s the point of making it to the twenty-first century without pushing any boundaries? Settling into civility- what an anticlimax, after everything. And what a loss, really, of all of the ups and downs of their dynamic. There will always be friction between them- it’s personal just as much as it’s historical. That doesn’t mean they can’t get along, but it means turbulence is sort of implied in their give-and-take.

These conclusions beg the question, of course, of what exactly the grander scheme is here- the novel end-goal. But this, Anne thinks, is a tad self-evident.

“You’ve got this look on your face,” Cleves says, the first to comment upon it, a week into her brother’s departure. “Smells like trouble.”

“That so?” Anne inquires, all butter-may-melt innocence. “Warning ahead?”

“Who do you think I am?” Cleves asks, and then grins, toothy. “Just stocking up on the popcorn.”

“Heard salted caramel goes best with the rom-coms,” Anne replies, winking, and saunters off to the sound of Cleves’ delighted outrage.

“ _Rom-coms_? Boleyn!”

Hardly surprising, Anne thinks. Hardly surprising, because of all the men to chase her skirt she had never cared for one more than she cared for her own ambitions, and of all the great men whose courts she graced there was none who ever made more of an impression than Henry’s wife. It’s not puppy love: it’s a very determined seduction. Thank the new millennium for making it so easy.

Howard, obviously, is the first to catch on to the specifics.

They’re on the dorm bus for the night, choosing bunks, and Anne swings very casually into the one across Aragon’s, paying no mind to the confusion that follows as the girls reorganise themselves.

“Change of pace?” Aragon inquires, wry, as they settle into their bunks. Anne, making short work of changing into her pyjama top, bobs her head.

“Won’t disturb your midnight prayers.”

“Oh, you can’t promise that,” Aragon replies, gaze flashing smartly despite her unruffled posture. Charmer. Anne pauses mid-short shimmy to watch her sweep her curls out of her face, making quick work of tight tresses.

Aragon catches her looking, tilts her head pensively. “Don’t ask to hear it again, but I’m glad you’ve moved up. I’ve been meaning to get into the reformist stance with you.”

“I’m sorry?” Anne asks, with incredulous enthusiasm. “Could you please say that louder for the people in the back?”

“Not even the once,” Aragon says, smiling a mite meanly, which makes Anne grin at her. “But I am serious. There was never much of a chance to debate ethics with so much politics involved.”

“I was never a reformist for the King’s hand in marriage,” Anne makes a point of noting, though mildly. Aragon only nods.

“And I no longer think you’re a heretic. The times they are a’ changing.”

“Who even are you?”

“A very good question,” Aragon replies, clad in Ivy Park and lit by the stark white of the bus lights as Anne overlays the two of them. “Hence the broadening of ideas.”

“Well, I’ve always liked a good debate.”

“Discussion, I was thinking.”

“So debate, then?” Anne agrees, which makes her laugh unwillingly. “I will warn you- I get quite heated.”

“Surely not.”

“You love it really,” Anne promises, and kicks the rest of her way into her boxer shorts. “I’ll go tuck the cousin in. Hope you have your questions ready.”

Aragon, the asshole, only raises a notepad. Anne glides over to the back of the bus, where Cleves smirks in her direction, finds Howard gazing up at her with mingled disbelief and exhilaration.

“Something on your mind?”

“Anne,” Howard starts, and then tugs her downwards and close, foreheads brushing. “You’re _seducing_ her.”

“Is it working?”

“Anne!” Howard repeats, eyes like dinner plates and lips curling with real Boleyn-like wickedness. “It- she- how in the hell-”

“The last time I set my mind to a seduction,” Anne informs her, patting her cheek with cool confidence, “I split the Church and State. Think I can manage.”

“Oh, you’re so-“ Howard starts, and then sighs gustily, almost dreamily. “How exciting. Please don’t split the band.”

“Already done the solo act,” Anne reassures, and kisses her nose. “Night night. Don’t butt in.”

Howard mimes zipping her lips, looking for all the world like a thrilled kid.

“Don’t you look like the cat that’s got the cream?” Aragon notes, brows raised, when Anne sidles back up to their bunks. Anne returns the look steadily.

“Not quite yet.”

Parr catches on at some point during the Vienna set, assessing gaze meeting Anne’s as they chatter ahead of press; Seymour notices in a far more memorable manner, physically dropping her entire mic-stand when realisation hits a week later in Rome.

Aragon, for her part, remains staunchly oblivious. Staunch, because Aragon isn’t dull and Anne is only subtle to those she doesn’t want to know, and thus the obliviousness is a clear choice. Anne’s not surprised that she’s playing dumb, nor that this means she’s not rejecting anything outright.

“You keep underestimating her,” she serenely informs Seymour during an intervention. “Cromwell said she could have _defied all the heroes of History_. What about that screams ‘predictable’?”

“Didn’t he hate her?” Seymour tries, brows knotting as Anne sighs.

“Yes, Janey. Very much.”

Respect born despite enmity: it’s a powerful thing.

The fans, screaming scrutinising masses that they are, catch onto it miles ahead of the rest, eating it up for fan-service; it plays into her hand, the feedback loop, harkens back to the court days of Chinese whispers somehow. All in the presentation, always.

“Does it bother you, when they ‘ship’ you?” a People interviewer asks, in Athens, to much tittering from the audience. Anne kicks her legs up into Aragon’s lap, flutters her eyelashes.

“Why on earth would it bother us?”

“Ow,” Aragon dead-pans, lifting one studded boot off her thigh. She sets it back down on top of the other, though.

“It is a little odd for those of us in relationships,” Parr says, steering the interview. “But I take it as a compliment, really, considering these lovely ladies.”

Collective ‘aw’s ensue. Anne keeps her boots where they are. So convenient, this numbered seating.

Stealing touches is quite easy, all things considered. Works with the sisterhood of six girl power vibe they’ve got going on, all the hugging and hand-holding and whatnot; off stage is a little harder, but Anne’s got some old courtly tricks up her sleeve when it comes to sneaking contact, and this Aragon’s less fussed about people touching her royal person.

No, it’s the psychological game of chess that’s the kicker, unsurprisingly. Cleves would probably give a disillusioned Teutonic shrug and brand them both sociopaths for approaching a flirtation in terms of strategy, but then that’s why Cleves isn’t the one whose moves Anne is watching, despite the fact she’s the only person in the world she’s ever let seen her belt out Cascada at karaoke.

The main challenge is that Aragon is playing hard to get. Anne gets the feeling that she’s enjoying it- being pursued for the kicks, not just assigned a husband for the highest value and shuffled cross-continent to join him. It means Anne has to be clever, strategically- can’t buy her over with flashy gestures or honeyed niceties.

It’s the first time she’s ever actually wanted to win over the person she’s set her targets on. It’s kind of fun. She has that a lot, these days- fun, that is. 

Doesn’t mean she can’t complain about it, of course. If only privately.

“It’s super gross how much I have to listen to you pretend not to enjoy the chase,” Howard tells her, in barely disguised tones of glee, wiggling into a skin-tight latex dress as Anne holds the dressing room’s curtain shut with a raised heel. “I’d never do this to you.”

“That’s because our love lives are diametrically opposed in every sense and you’re still recovering from your crippling phobia of intimacy,” Anne replies, glancing cursorily up from her phone to eye Howard in the mirror. “I like this one better.”

“Yeah?” Howard asks, turning to get a better look at her ass. “Not the green?”

“Not with your colouring.”

“Or you don’t want me wearing your colour.”

“You have hot pink hair,” Anne sighs, continuing her scrolling. “It makes you look like both the Fairly Oddparents.”

“Oh,” Howard says, semi-dejectedly. “Is that bad?”

Anne chooses not to comment. Howard shimmies into her next outfit.

“Anyways. I guess I shouldn’t question the consistency of the complaining. It’s very characteristic.”

“I like to diversify the source of my complaints for your sake.”

“Oh, for me? Really?” Howard quips, scrunching her nose around a smile. “Cleves said it was ‘cause your brother got to you.”

“Cleves said, huh?” Anne asks, raising a brow and the corner of her mouth in sync. “That your new gossip pal now that I’m otherwise engaged?”

“It’s not _gossip_ per se,” Howard replies, loftily, and pats herself down. “And we’ve get along. Is this shirt cut weird?”

“She has a knack for getting along with people,” Anne says, pausing to look her up and down. “Just pull the sleeves down, it’ll look fine.”

Howard presumably obeys, humming appreciatively. “So what’s the next move?”

“Next move?”

“Well, ’s like you were saying,” Howard clarifies, tossing the shirt onto the heap and pulling her own back on. “Groundwork is done, but you keep missing your moments cause Aragon keeps dodging in like a semi-accidental-but-too-consistent-to-really-be way.”

“Yes,” Anne hums, and stands, sliding her phone into her pocket and heaving her cousin’s discarded outfits into the basket. “It does look like that keeps happening, doesn’t it?”

“Look like?” Howard echoes, as Anne slides the curtain open. “Wait, look like?”

“She’ll not be wanting these,” Anne informs the sales clerk, as Howard emerges with her chosen clothing in arm, fixing her with an expectant look that she laughs off. “Oh, come on, like I didn’t account for the resistance in my planning.”

“You- schemer,” Howard accuses, after a beat, jogging to follow. “You planned it like this?”

Anne pats her cheek. “You’ll catch up someday.”

“Pawn to D4.”

“Pawn to D5.”

“Pawn to C4.”

Aragon pauses, hands stilling above the board, looks at her. Anne flutters her lashes prettily. It makes the other woman huff out an exasperated laugh, shower-damp hair bouncing against her nice golden silk pyjamas.

“The Queen’s gambit.”

“Is it really?”

“That was old news even in our times,” Aragon reproaches, examining the board thoughtfully. She’s not wrong, of course- it’s an opening people have relied on since probably the invention of the game. But Anne’s too good a chess player to make the move on accident, which Aragon knows full well- the opening’s only barely relevant to the actual game.

Their eyes meet, dark on pale. They’re sat on opposite sides of Aragon’s bed, her little magnetised chess set between them, sounds of the train’s progression providing a convenient soothing backdrop to their back and forth. Before the last month or so Anne would have refused to come within a mile of a chessboard, or any courtly game that requires similarly intent focus, but she knows the value of playing on someone else’s terms, and Aragon enjoys the game. Anne’s always thought chess to be about 50/50 machinations and on-board transparency; Aragon’s interest is thoroughly unsurprising.

They’re heading back to the UK for their final leg of the tour; for the past few weeks Anne has spent most of her evenings working on her new single in Aragon’s only semi-antagonistic company, staying later and later into the night before she flounces back to her room. Tonight it’s gone half past eleven, and Anne’s slow hammering away at Aragon’s boundaries has paid off. They stopped working by unspoken agreement about half an hour ago; it’s getting late, and it’s not Aragon’s generously divided complementary champagne that’s causing the low-level buzz throughout the room.

Schemer, Howard had said. Indubitably, Anne thinks. She’s set her board meticulously over the months of this tour- wormed her way as far out of Aragon’s black book as she’s willing to go, steadily created a new dynamic for them, laid out the implicit terms of the future she’s after. Two lives have taught her this much- checkmate matters less than the game, if the player’s good enough. Which makes sense, really, because who really gives a shit about the King?

That leaves her with this: one Queen’s gambit, masterfully set up. It’s Aragon’s move now.

Aragon finishes her champagne, sets it down neatly on the window-sill. Dark on pale. Her hand moves towards her pawn, fingers closing gracefully around its neck, stills.

Silently, her pawn moves to C4. Anne’s topples.

“Pawn takes C4,” Aragon pronounces, measured, moving the pawn off the board.

Queen’s Gambit Accepted. Just to be difficult, Anne stifles the urge to grin, eyes sparkling with restraint as she takes her own pawn in hand, playing it cool.

“Pawn takes C4.”

“ _Anne_ ,” Aragon says, somewhere between amused and irritated. Then she pushes the board off the bed.

“Call it a draw?” Anne inquires pleasantly, raising her brows as she watches the pieces scatter.

“Let’s say we adjourned,” Aragon replies, gamely, and leans in to kiss her.

Two months into it Cleves forks over the money with put-upon reluctance, batting Anne away as she crowds her smugly.

“All right, all right, it’s not like there’s shortage of money here.”

“You’re not even ticked off,” Anne declares, pocketing the cash. “You wanted it to work.”

“Well, sure,” Cleves admits, crossing her arms and considering her. “Be sort of mad not to.”

“‘Cause you love us,” Anne wheedles, and kicks her way into Cleves’ lap.

“Might admit to it under duress,” Cleves replies, allowing the intrusion with grace. “And actually it’s just ‘cause now you at least keep the foreplay to yourselves some of the time.”

“Aw, you like to watch really.”

Cleves winks. Anne winks back.

They still rub each other up the wrong way just about as often as they do the right way, of course. That was fully accounted for by both parties ahead of time. It’s just done with mutual understanding this time around, which is a lot less annoying.

“A lot less annoying for you,” Howard corrects, when Anne voices this thought. “I’m the one who has to sit and languish in solitude while the rest of you live fulfilled lives.”

“Languish in solitude,” Anne repeats. Howard sucks obstinately on her straw.

“I did pass my A-levels.”

“Languish. In solitude.”

“All right,” Howard concedes, when Anne keeps staring at her. “Maybe not solitude.”

Anne doesn’t relent with the staring, so she drops the angst, giggling. “Maybe not the languishing either.”

“That’s better,” Anne agrees, and hooks their arms together. “You sounded like my brother in one of his hungover episodes.”

“He languishes?”

“Not about his broken heart.”

It’s secretly a good time for the lot of them, Anne is sure. Parr and Seymour are in relationships, of course, but boring ones; Howard’s a conflicted romantic, and Cleves is a total player who enjoys watching other people’s mess from an arm’s length away, so it’s a gift to the group, really, as good as any TV reality programme.

“It’s probably worrying that you see your own contentious relationship as entertainment,” George decides, over FaceTime. “Like, a tad unhinged.”

Anne gazes up from the business accounts she’d been reading to give him a look. His psychoanalytical moods never bode well.

“I didn’t say _I_ found it worrying,” George defends, raising his manicured hands. “I find it charmingly brilliant that you’ve shacked up with Catherine of Aragon. And also a great move from a business standpoint, but that doesn’t have any bearing on my feelings on the matter.”

“I would be concerned if I thought that was true,” Anne replies, so coolly George’s composure breaks, laughter cutting through his diplomat’s stance. It’s a gift.

“I am enamoured with this deranged relationship, though. Really.”

“Oh, I know. I’m not entirely sure you’re not trying to seduce my girlfriend whenever you interact.”

“I’m not entirely sure I’m not doing that either,” George agrees sunnily. “Is it working?”

It’s not, though Aragon is shockingly pleasant with George, to the point where Anne is relatively certain she’s doing it just to mess with her. Aragon insists she just enjoys his courtly manners, which only serves to cement the suspicion.

“Please don’t actually succumb to George’s dubious charms,” Anne requests later, very reasonably, sprawled across Aragon’s dressing room couch. Aragon just slants her a look.

“Give me a good reason not to.”

“Actually sharing a bed with my brother is not a rumour I want to substantiate.”

“Okay,” Aragon says, after a beat. “That is a good reason.”

“I thought so too.”

“Is this how you guys’ private conversations usually go?” Seymour asks, in tones of restrained resignation. Anne just winks; Aragon smiles inquisitively. Seymour nods like she saw this coming.

“We should probably stop tormenting Seymour so much,” Anne says, once Seymour has made her retreat. “Not because I’m concerned about her fragile feelings, but because she’s our sanest friend and she’s going to start restricting our baked goods privileges.”

“If not her, then who?”

“I think no one is the right answer,” Anne considers. “Albeit an extremely lame one. Also, you torment me constantly.”

“Yes, but you’re a terrible victim,” Aragon says, matter-of-factly. “You didn’t even crack when you got beheaded under false accusations upon the say of your husband and father.”

Anne blinks at her, gathers her hair thoughtlessly into a bun. “I thought we weren’t doing the soppy thing.”

“Oh, get over yourself, Boleyn.”

“Love you too.”

“You start ex oh ex oh baby-ing me and I get a restraining order.”

“Never,” Anne promises, all mock-horror, but she means it, and so when Aragon smiles at her like she sees through it it’s sort of touching in a mildly worrying way. Necessarily, she changes the subject.

“D’you ever wonder what Henry would think say if he somehow knew you’d snatch me from him down the line?”

Aragon stills, sets down her brush, purses her lips. “He did have a lot of health issues.”

“And you’d bring the popcorn?” Anne asks, smirking. Aragon looks at her with saintly disapproval.

“It would be extremely un-Christian of me to suggest I’d derive any enjoyment out of watching my own cheating amoral swine of an ex-husband die of a sudden and violent conniption if he had an inkling of what was to come.”

“Oh, for sure. Wouldn’t dream of implying that.”

“Good,” Aragon smiles, and resumes brushing her hair as Anne grins to herself. “And for the record- I’d consider it snatching you _back_.”

“Hm?”

“Well,” Aragon says, twinkle in her eyes. “You were mine first, if you’ll recall.”

“Unbelievable,” Anne manages, shaking her head. “You royals are so damn entitled.”

“You’re one too, darling, difficult though it may be to believe.”

“You fantastic bitch,” Anne says, admiringly, and hops off the couch. “Have you finished your makeup?”

“Show ready,” Aragon agrees, and then narrows her eyes in alarm. “Oh, no way, don’t you dare-“

Anne kisses her resoundingly, and enjoys the hiss of resigned outrage that follows.

**Author's Note:**

> so much of this fic is just anne hanging out w her family because i think she'd be a cool older cousin + i adore george for being essentially the slightly smarmier male copy of his sister
> 
> also my actual fav in the cast is cleves (unsurprisingly) so she just cameos in this a lot 
> 
> i think this fic is one of the most unresolved stories i've ever written in terms of expected romantic standards but tbf it's only romantic in a very specific sense of the term and it's a sense that i enjoy so i stand by it
> 
> if you somehow read thru this whole thing i would love to hear your thoughts in the comments! also i'm @quidfree on tumblr/discord if you want to send me your Six thinkpieces or just ask me if george boleyn was hot irl


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